I'll Drown
by Immer Mit Der Ruhe
Summary: Sulu bleeds. He feels like he's drowning. (Prompt: One day, Chekov's pushed to his limit and is on the brink of killing someone and Sulu tries to talk him down.)


Trigger Warnings: graphic descriptions of violence, mentions of kidnapping and slavery, and minor character death

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- I'll Drown -

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Sulu felt like he was drowning. Floating, then sinking… sinking… sinking. He gasped for breath against the pressure on his chest, but he felt so sleepy and feeble. He felt dead.

Sulu closed his eyes and let go.

For a moment after he regained consciousness, Sulu was sure he was in Heaven. He squinted against the bright white lights, the soft feel of cushions beneath his back. The beeping and whirring of the machinery around him was what broke the illusion. He closed his eyes again for a moment, wincing when he opened them again, having a hard time adjusting to the harsh light of the room. The sickbay, he realized.

"So, you're awake," a voice – far too loud for Sulu's pounding headache – said.

(Doctor McCoy. It had to be McCoy, his southern twang evident.)

"What happened?" Sulu croaked, his throat dry and scratchy.

"Chekov happened," McCoy replied. "Although, I suppose technically it was a slave ring that happened. What's the last thing you remember?"

"I…" Sulu started, pausing for a moment to collect his thoughts, his brow furrowed in concentration. "I remember a little girl, I think. And maybe – "

"Okay, hold your horses," the doctor interrupted, motioning for Sulu to stop. "Answer these questions for me quickly. What's your name?"

"Hikaru Sulu," Sulu replied, confused but not protesting.

"Rank?"

"Lieutenant."

"What's the current star date?"

"2259.82."

"Good," McCoy said, scribbling something on Sulu's medical chart. "You lost a pretty large amount of blood. We gave you a transfusion, but I still wanted to make sure that your brain's functioning as it should. No damage was apparent on the scanner, but sometimes it's good to check the traditional way, especially if you're having trouble remembering anything other than bits and pieces of your… _altercation_ this morning."

"Just give me a moment," Sulu said, trying to will his memories to reappear.

"Yeah, well, I'm afraid you might not have a moment," McCoy replied, a dark note in his voice, making worry clench in Sulu's chest.

"What do you mean?" Sulu asked, trying to remain calm, his voice steady.

"I mean that there's a slaver in the ICU who has a fifty/fifty chance of surviving," McCoy answered, his expression grim, "and all we know is that Chekov put him there. You're the only other witness, and we better hope to God that that slaver lives, no matter how worthless of a person he was, because if he doesn't, our navigator's looking at a second degree murder charge. Voluntary manslaughter if he's lucky. Oh, and let's not forget that this planet still upholds the death penalty."

"What?" Sulu exclaimed, jolting upright in the bed, but then flopping back down on the bed as a searing pain shot through his side. "Ah! Shit, shit, shit. Oh, fuck – what did I _do_ to myself?"

"I'd like to know that just as much as you," Doctor McCoy muttered, altering Sulu's painkiller dosage. "All I know is that you've got a nine centimeter gash in your side. You're damn lucky that it's not any deeper than it is – it managed to miss both your stomach and your pancreas."

"Yeah, sure. I'll be sure to be grateful as soon as I can think about anything other than how much this fucking hurts," Sulu muttered through clenched teeth, right hand fisted in the bed sheets.

"Well get over the pain soon," McCoy replied, looking unimpressed. "I still need to know what happened down there that caused Chekov to go completely homicidal."

"Just give me a minute," Sulu ground out, glaring at the doctor. Really, couldn't he be at least a _bit_ sympathetic? Or, you know, _pleasant_?

Sulu sighed, trying to relax himself and closed his eyes for a moment, doing his best to remember what had happened that morning. Well, he had a gash in his side. Why not start there –

_They'd somehow stumbled across a vessel from a notorious slave ring down on the small planet they'd stopped to refuel at. It was a small enough vessel that the captain had figured that a surgical strike team of four would be sufficient. He and Commander Spock would round up the main crew of the vessel – specifically the captain – and subdue them, bringing them into Starfleet custody. Sulu and Chekov were to focus on freeing the ship's captives. _

_The beginning of the new mission went smoothly. Very smoothly, in fact. Really, that should have been Sulu's first clue that everything was about to go to shit. He and Chekov had gotten into the ship without incident and had managed to stun the two guards they had found patrolling the halls, the rest of the slavers none the wiser. Chekov had easily hacked into the ship's controls and pulled up a map of the ship, leading them effortlessly to the hull where the slaves were being kept. _

_They were almost there when the captain contacted them to notify them that he and Spock had effectively completed their end of the mission without a hitch. Seeing as, according to Kirk, the entire crew had already been subdued, Sulu and Chekov had strode right on into the hull and started setting the slaves free, instructing them to go to the bridge where they could contact Starfleet and figure out how to get home. _

_Just when they thought they'd gotten everyone out of the hull, a large, bulky, clearly not enslaved man stepped out of the shadows. In his arms was clutched a young Orion girl, her dirty blonde-brown curls wild and frizzy and tear tracks running down her pale green cheeks. _

_Sulu and Chekov froze. _

_"Let me out of here and don't follow me, or I'll break her neck," the slaver growled, fingers digging into the soft flesh of the girl's neck. _

_"Starfleet officers are not authorized to negotiate with slavers," Sulu replied, keeping his voice as steady as he possibly could. _

_No sooner had the words left his mouth, than a sickening crack echoed through the expanse of the hull. Sulu felt like someone had just knocked his feet out from under him. He felt like he was drowning. He blinked, his shocked eyes fixed on the corpse of the young girl, her head lolling at a sickening angle. He felt like he was going to puke. _

_He snapped back to reality as a howl tore through the room, almost making him jump. In just a matter of seconds, Chekov had gone from standing next to Sulu to delivering a wicked looking punch to the slaver's face. The salver was taken completely off guard and was unable to duck in time, the force of the blow making him stumble back and nearly fall. _

_The slaver had no time to recover before Chekov delivered a kick to his stomach, knocking the slaver to the ground. Sulu thought he heard ribs cracking, and a moment later the slaver was coughing up blood. Chekov kicked at him again, planting his boot right in the slaver's face, breaking his nose. _

_However, the slaver apparently still had some strength left, and kicked out at Chekov, sweeping him off his feet. The young Russian made the mistake of holding his hand out to break his fall and soon Sulu heard the sound of breaking bone again. Sulu started rushing over to the navigator's side, sure that the fight was over, now that the slaver was immobile and Chekov was injured, but suddenly he saw Chekov's uninjured hand sweep out, grasping something off the floor. _

_Sulu saw Chekov push himself to a sitting position, lashing out again at the slaver. He rushed over to his friend's side, grasping his shoulder and trying to prevent him from going any further –_

_Only to suddenly find a rusty knife in his side. _

_Chekov's eyes were still glinting with rage. He started pulling the knife out again but Sulu grasped his hand, stopping him from removing the knife, and forcing Chekov to look directly in his eyes. Sulu kept one hand on Chekov's, keeping him from taking back the knife and placed the other – now bloody – hand on the navigator's cheek. _

_"Pavel," he ground out, trying to focus on anything other than the pain shooting through his body. "Pavel! Listen to me!"_

_Chekov blinked, the spark of anger in his eyes dimming. He looked away from Sulu's face, taking in the knife sticking out of Sulu's side and the blood dripping onto his fingers and the floor of the vessel. _

_"I – " he started, looking shocked and distant. "She looked like my sister."_

_"She's not your sister," Sulu said evenly, moving his hand from Chekov's cheek to his chin, forcing him to look Sulu in the eye again, smearing blood over his cheek in the process. "That's not your sister." _

_"She could have been," Chekov replied, eyes turned in Sulu's direction, but his gaze unfocused, seeing past Sulu. "They're still searching for her, you know."_

_"Still searching for her?" Sulu asked softly, confused, trying to focus on Chekov's words and not the blurriness encroaching on his vision. _

_"I joined Starfleet to look for her," Chekov answered, his voice getting faster, a little more panicked sounding. "She's out somewhere – I _know_ she is. They took her, but I'll find her. I promised I would – I'll – "_

_"Pavel!" Sulu snapped again, trying to snap the navigator out of his rant. "That's. Not. Her." _

_Sulu used his diminishing strength to turn Chekov's head in the direction of where the young slave's body lay broken on the ground. Chekov stared at it for a moment, his eyes wide and his mouth hanging open. _

_"Oh." _

_Sulu blacked out._

Sulu opened his eyes again, breathing deeply and trying to reorient himself, reminding himself that he was still in the sickbay. He looked over at Doctor McCoy who was still sitting next to his bed patiently. Apparently he hadn't actually been thinking for that long, otherwise McCoy probably would have thought he'd gone back under.

"I remember," Sulu said simply. "And just as a friendly tip: don't make Chekov mad."


End file.
